


allow me all the things i've not deserved

by 94gcfs



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Getting Together, M/M, POV Miya Atsumu, Pining, Post-Time Skip, aka gratuitous references to very Specific Things and making them mean something, atsumu's a YEARNER everybody point and laugh, rated T for Atsumu's potty mouth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:00:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28315665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/94gcfs/pseuds/94gcfs
Summary: miya atsumu holds in his chest a heart that is constantly in overdrive: it loves and it loves and it loves. and because he loves the way that he does, in a way that swallows him whole, let his love be solidified into matter. there is nothing else that binds love more than promises. so he makes a few.the first promise is that when they look back in fifty years by the fireplace in their rocking chairs and ugly knitted sweaters, he will say, with full confidence, that he was happier. fuck you, ‘samu. pay up.the second promise is that when they look back in fifty years by the fireplace in their rocking chairs and ugly knitted sweaters, osamu has a ring on his left finger and he, the happier twin, has none.the second promise is to never fall in love again.
Relationships: Miya Atsumu/Sakusa Kiyoomi
Comments: 11
Kudos: 29





	allow me all the things i've not deserved

_ the lover’s fatal identity is precisely this: _ _  
_ _ i am the one who waits. _

_ r.s. _

miya atsumu holds in his chest a heart that is constantly in overdrive: it loves and it loves and it loves. and because he loves the way that he does, in a way that swallows him whole, let his love be solidified into matter. there is nothing else that binds love more than promises. so he makes a few.

the first promise atsumu makes when he graduates is to himself. it is a promise to stay in volleyball, to get better, to be happier than fucking  _ osamu _ . he makes it the moment osamu renounces their unspoken promise to go do his own thing, leaving atsumu—like he always was, like he never was, growing up—alone. the first promise is that when they look back in fifty years by the fireplace in their rocking chairs and ugly knitted sweaters, he will say, with full confidence, that he was happier. fuck you, ‘samu. pay up.

the first promise is made with the thrill of leaving adolescence and the fear of leaving more than that behind. atsumu’s love is volleyball, and he was sure that it was osamu’s, too. nothing makes him happier; for osamu to find something else is almost insulting. so he will go through volleyball hell and back, to emerge from the tunnel wearing red with a crowd to cheer him on, to make sure that he gets to tell osamu, who chose to leave him for  _ rice _ , that he was happier.

the second is also to himself, because atsumu has always been selfish and he thinks he deserves to be taken care of: he will do it himself since no one else does.

he makes it when he is a second year in high school, in inarizaki’s locker room right after the third years’ graduation ceremony, his hands smelling of the stems of the roses he had bought with the allowance he’d saved for three weeks and the lingering scent of kita’s hand cream (it was vanilla, of course). it is spring and the cherry blossoms are blooming, and outside smells of morning dew and the grass after it had just rained but all atsumu smells is fucking vanilla bean scented lotion.

the second promise is that when they look back in fifty years by the fireplace in their rocking chairs and ugly knitted sweaters, osamu has a ring on his left finger and he, the happier twin, has none.

the second promise is to never fall in love again.

-

atsumu makes do on his promises. the first is easy: he grows up, he bulks up. he trains more rigorously than ever, he sets more precisely than ever. he is on the road to a future with MSBY and a red uniform with some of his best teammates. 

(he goes home to an empty apartment that he hasn’t called home yet. it’s a rest stop.

osamu is taking up culinary and stays at the university dorm. on nights like these, when he’s relegated himself to the couch because making the extra steps to the bedroom that lacks any indication a human lives there is far too taxing for his bone-weary soul, he stares up at the ceiling and allows himself a little introspection. he hopes osamu is happy, the jackass. he hopes he’s happy, because it would make this weird, slimy sadness in his chest a little worth it. he has never felt this alone, before.

atsumu’s a selfish asswipe, but fuck if he doesn’t care for his brother maybe more than he does for himself. he knows that starting a food enterprise was more tumultuous than a future with volleyball that is dictated by the scouts and the opportunities you’re offered. he’s painfully lonely, without the shadow of his brother by his side, but he knows osamu took a harder route. he hopes osamu is happy in business school with his goddamn rice.

thinks that maybe osamu—smart, talented, happy osamu—had foreseen these nights on the couch after days weeks months of speedrunning his adolescence in pursuit of red at the end of the tunnel and had known how lonely the drive would be.)

-

the second promise is a little more difficult. this is because miya atsumu—bold, brash, loud, annoying, asshole miya atsumu—is a massive hypocrite.

atsumu is in love with love, so maybe the second promise was a futile attempt at sparing his turdy dick of a heart from heartbreak. atsumu, despite the very popular notion that he is incapable of it, loves very much, and loves very easily.

he’s working on it, he tells himself. miya atsumu is a heart made of man, but he thinks he’s been doing a fine job at it. there’s been no one else like kita and his vanilla hand cream and his care packages with umeboshi candy. there will be no one else like kita.

but then the starbucks barista smiles at him and tells him to have a great day, and atsumu starts to think it’s destiny. or bokuto, who is bold and brash and loud and only sometimes annoying but not at all an asshole, is a little too touchy on a day when atsumu is feeling—not that he’d ever admit it—a little touch starved. then he grins as he puts atsumu in a headlock and talks about akaashi, the love of his life, and atsumu pretends like he’s okay.

and then hinata shouyou joins. and atsumu’s shitheel heart remembers the promise he’d made six years ago to a shrimpy bastard who beat him and his brother, to when he felt the closest he had been to plummeting and thinks, ah. this is destiny. this is the universe lining up the stars for him to make do on a six-year-old promise he’d once said after feeling loss start to sink into his bones and have it unite him and an estranged rival for them to fall madly in love with each other and with volleyball, together. the end.

but the universe is the universe, and he is convinced that it is out to get him because hinata shouyou is also mentally engaged to kageyama tobio. and if either of them were as sharp as they were gorgeous, they’d be well on their way to being physically engaged, too. and no matter how pretty shouyou’s smile is when it’s directed at him, or how atsumu managed to infringe on that duo’s iconic quick and created one that was only  _ theirs _ , his and shouyou’s—it will never be him.

the fault lies with him for forgetting. so he stamps down his dipshit heart and feels it come down with a tired exhale.

enter sakusa kiyoomi, who had finally decided to show up again after a short detour to college. and atsumu’s heart, the little fucker, breathes life again.

(he’s starting to think that maybe his heart holds dear a few too many people for him to keep count. that no matter who they are, when they come back, it will restart. and this manifests in the way he saw bokuto koutarou and was a witness once again to the brilliance he almost always went up against back in high school, saw hinata shouyou and the radiance of the sun that had only grown brighter since his trip to brazil and felt the pangs of nostalgia from a promise he had made and a future he had wished for when he was younger and naive and a little freer to love. saw sakusa kiyoomi grow up on the other side of the court and then not at all, while he went to chase a doctorate and atsumu went to chase a red uniform down the fastest route, and somehow felt the loss of four years ache more than it should. his romantic side had never done him any good.)

not much has changed since high school: sakusa isn’t loud in the ways atsumu is, but he’s an asshole all the same, which brings him a sense of comfort in its familiarity. atsumu feels a camaraderie in that: they are the two assholes in a team full of wonder. he’s still terribly competitive, in the same way he was that brought him up to being one of the top three aces back in high school in just his second year and the intercollegiate mvp in college. he’s still horribly petty, and easy to rile up. it’s absolutely delightful picking a fight with him.

sakusa still despises touch and still despises him, probably, and he is still incredibly pretty—grown even prettier than he already was. atsumu has always had a penchant for pretty things, and the difficulty of sakusa and his dry jabs and glares just adds to the fun of it.

before atsumu’s dumb cardiovascular system even thinks of making his breathing all wonky for a pretty boy from his rose-colored gold-gilded past, sakusa gets picked up after training by the libero of ejp raijin. he notes the easy closeness and—of course. glad that’s out of the way.

-

sakusa kiyoomi stays an enigma for just as long as he has that godforsaken mask on covering his pretty face—that is to say, not a long time. even after years of going up against each other and training together, sakusa had always left a considerable distance where he had already burned the bridge before anyone could ever approach it. but it’s different, now, when you’re teammates. volleyball practice isn’t invasive, but you could only last so long hiding behind a facade when you deal with these people who you will involuntarily learn almost everything and nothing about. atsumu has already memorized sakusa’s volleyball accolades and habits before sakusa had entered MSBY. atsumu learns about sakusa’s history of injuries before he learns about his favorite color.

(it’s green, apparently. atsumu doesn’t know where to fit this in the ever-expanding encyclopedia he keeps on the people who he will inevitably know far too much about and be immediately significant to him for an indefinite period. because for as much volleyball does to bring him to people who would never think twice about staying for more than a few hours on end everyday with him, it is also constrained by time. others might say that the connections forged through volleyball don’t need it to exist, but it undoubtedly helps maintain it. and atsumu, for all that he is  _ himself _ , needs all the help he can get.

sakusa’s favorite color is green. it’s not volleyball-level connection, not yet, but this will be helpful for gifts, at least.)

the process of getting to know the people you will be stuck with until your contract ends is the same for as long as atsumu has been in the team: it starts with barnes and thomas roping sakusa into a drinking game during a dinner out after a game. and the poor newbie never stood a chance; everyone knows that there’s never been much of a choice to these things.

it ends with sakusa drunk, but you’d never know it if not for the absence of a mask obscuring his face. without the mask, sakusa looks strangely vulnerable. he’s not on court—none of them are, and they’re all just a little extra human. his skin is flushed bright peony red—a far cry from the pale moonlit yet vaguely anemic glow he usually gives off. his hands, usually intertwined on his lap, are open-faced on the table. it’s like he’s almost asking for them to be held. he looks incredibly peaceful, and the open vulnerability is the only indication that yeah, he’s fucking hammered.

he knows this, just like atsumu knows that sakusa has a perpetual frown on his face when he’s outside the court. enough times crossing paths in the locker room and tossing out a greeting in hopes of a better response than a disgruntled “miya,” of acknowledgement lets him know that much. he almost always looks pissed, and atsumu knows him well enough to know that it’s his default expression.

atsumu has never seen sakusa this at peace.  _ without _ a mask,  _ with _ people.  _ he _ thinks that’s significant, at least, since no one seems too enthusiastic about this turn of events. to be fair, this isn’t as close to as wild as it got with bokuto’s initiation process, so he’ll give them that. at least meian is taking advantage of this weirdly pliant, soft version of sakusa to coo at his growing flush, to which is only responded to with a quiet “mmn” of assent. inunaki is pushing the already eager bokuto to take pictures and videos to send to the group chat.

atsumu gets the notification ping and opens it to sakusa’s blushing face, his eyes closed and his mouth in a content line. it’s devastatingly adorable. atsumu pretends he doesn’t think it, and downs what’s left in his mug.

-

it is at this point in time that atsumu has come to terms with possibly never achieving the fairy tale volleyball teammate romance that he has, quite embarrassingly, sincerely hoped for. volleyball is the love of his life, and he was foolish to ever think he’d go pro with a high school sweetheart at his side when he is so unequivocally  _ him _ . the only person who was legally obligated to stay with him through the end has now forcibly severed himself before it had even come to that. if osamu, his blood brother turned rice fucker, didn’t want to stay, then no one would.

he sees akaashi in the bleachers just to support bokuto even if his job is a city away, sees tobio stare at shouyou through the net with such yearning it’s almost relatable with how it is suffocating, and he thinks that these people are people who are inherently desirable and wonderful to be with, that staying with them isn’t as much of an option as it is their hearts having no choice than to utterly surrender. he gets it, being on akaashi’s or tobio’s side. there’s nothing bad with wanting a piece of the sun.

he watches bokuto grin wider than he ever did that day, his eyes shining with unshed tears as he puffs out his chest in pride when he realizes the love of his life loves nothing more than to watch him be a star. he watches shouyou—oblivious, gorgeous shouyou—steal glances at his unofficial high school sweetheart and radiate with a ferociousness that’s only grown at finally being able to compete against the man he’s sworn his whole life to catch up to. he thinks of the vanilla hand cream in the pocket of his gym bag, and of running into osamu before the game for a quick chat over onigiri because no other ball has connected them more and for longer than one made out of rice.

there’s nothing bad with wanting a piece of the sun, he thinks, as he feels the tuna onigiri in his stomach digest and the faint scent of vanilla on his hands that’s never quite the same as that afternoon in the inarizaki locker rooms. he has always wanted the sun; atsumu has spent his whole life chasing it, and he still comes up short.

-

“hey, shou-kun,” atsumu says, when they’re in the locker room after having whooped adler’s asses. after shouyou’s 1906 wins and 1100 losses. “what’s the deal with the two o’ ’ya? you and tobio-kun.”

“huh?” shouyou asks, muffled through the jersey covering his face. his torso is out in the open, and atsumu feels his heart pang. hinata shouyou is gorgeous, and so not his. “oh! nothing’s up? if that’s what you’re asking?” he finally gets out of the jersey, and he turns to give atsumu a radiant smile. “we’re friends! we just haven’t played against each other in so long!”

“hmm,” atsumu hums. “what’s the deal with the counting, then?”  _ since the two of you are too dense for the other question. _

“oh, that!” shouyou laughs. he’s still grinning, but his eyes have turned resolute. “it’s a promise.”

“oh?” that sounds familiar.

shouyou hums, and his grin has mellowed out into a fond smile.  _ god, these two are dumb. _ his hands move to fold the jersey he took off, letting it lay on a knee raised on the bench. “the first time we went up against each other, my team lost so badly to him. before he went to go back to kita-ichi’s bus, i yelled at him and told him i was gonna beat him.”

“kitagawa daichi? that’s tobio-kun’s middle school,” atsumu asks. it’s been that long—ah.

_ one day, i’m gonna set for ’ya _ .

“yeah!” shouyou pauses in his ministrations, and he looks so honest. “he told me to get stronger. so i did.” he pats the folded jersey, and his grin comes back in full force as he turns to look at atsumu. his eyes are so bright. “and now i beat him!”

he never stood a chance.

-

he tries, he tells himself. fulfilling his second promise is a step to his first, where volleyball is the only love of his life. he is convinced that should he ever fall in love with anything outside of the sport, that it would only inhibit his reach. but despite all attempts at rejecting it, he can’t help  _ looking _ . 

because sakusa, who is socially inept and a general asshole whose only good qualities on the surface besides his undeniable skills on the court are his good looks and the fact that he’s probably the cleanest out of all of them at any given time, is very pretty. he is absolutely gorgeous, and, apparently, very single. 

(komori was a cousin, which was a detail atsumu had accidentally forgotten. besides the fact that they are two polar opposites, and that having them be related just feels like a giant joke the universe thought to pull, sakusa feels just that bit unreachable that thinking of him with an actual human family is a little weird. sakusa, who atsumu had known for years and then not at all for a few others, had felt disconnected. severed. but anyway—

sakusa is single, and sakusa is pretty. It eases the guilt of staring, and atsumu feels a weight he had not felt be lifted off of his chest.)

the funny thing with atsumu’s newfound fixation with the perpetually disgruntled man is that sakusa, apart from his hideous high school jersey and present MSBY tracksuit, is nothing like bokuto or hinata. there is nothing about the  _ sun _ in him. the moon fits him better, both inside and out—he is filled with craggles and craters, atsumu thinks. he’s far from being an embodiment of radiance and spectacle, because sakusa is someone who is very clearly flawed: he is a living adonis but his attitude and personality resembles that of a pufferfish, or a very, very poisonous snake. the juxtaposition of his raven hair and his pale porcelain skin adds to this metaphor, atsumu thinks quite proudly. sakusa isn’t the sun, because he’s the moon. 

and atsumu, who has long been after the sun and its brilliance, doesn’t have to fear breaking his second promise to a man who is the moon who walks around dressed like the sun. atsumu doesn’t fall for the moon.

it is with this false sense of security that he lets himself linger. because the moon is very pretty when it shines against the stark night sky and lets itself glow with the reflection of a burning star, and it is very pretty in a stadium in tokyo glowing glistening with sweat and lit up by a hundred fluorescent lights. sakusa, like all of them, look best when they’re playing volleyball.

he looks  _ alive _ , and atsumu is always, always hungry.

the thing about sakusa kiyoomi is that he always looks the same, mainly for the fact that the mask that covers half his face is ever present any time that they are not training. one could take this to mean that atsumu would be used to the sight of sakusa’s face—could even posit that maybe he’s sick of it, having to face it for hours on end and deal with the personality underneath the gorgeousness—but miya atsumu is a greedy bastard, he always has been, and he will never get enough of things that benefit or endanger him, pick your poison. so yes, atsumu  _ has _ been greeted with the sight of sakusa’s unmasked face for long enough to make anyone unfazed by it, but atsumu still finds things to fixate on.

the two beauty marks above his brow, how it reminds atsumu of that myth where beauty marks appear on places you’ve been kissed the most in your past life, how it should stay that way in this current life, because it would be a tragedy to lose them in the next. the darkness of his eyes, because when sakusa glares it feels like being seen through your soul, and when the light hits it just  _ so _ it looks like obsidians on the base of a volcano carrying the heat of lava and glinting in the afternoon light. the curl of his hair, how it always looks artfully curly at any given point, and no amount of sweat could get his hair to truly flatten. the veins in his hands, where his skin is moonlit porcelain with veins of blue thrumming under it. he is absolutely interesting. there are many things to look at, with sakusa.

the point of today, being: sakusa’s lips.

it truly is a tragedy, atsumu thinks when he’s setting the ball to sakusa’s waiting hand, that sakusa is far too paranoid about any unseen bacteria no matter how well-sanitized a room has been to ever let go of the mask during times that he’s outside of practice. sakusa may not be aware, but when he’s playing he lets his mouth fall ever so slightly, lets it form into a pretty little “o” shape in anticipation. and, when he spikes it just  _ so _ with that freaky wrist of his, his mouth curls up in an open smile, like the :D emoji atsumu overuses when he’s trying to get osamu to give him free rights to onigiri miya food. it is a tiny thing, but it is there nevertheless. atsumu doesn’t think anyone else has picked up on it, because their teammates—the menaces they are—would be sure to call it cute, if only to torment the spiker.  _ he _ certainly would, if he had a death wish. 

alas, sakusa kiyoomi and  _ cute _ do not fit together, according to sakusa kiyoomi. so atsumu keeps his thoughts to himself, and lets himself look in secret. 

and god, no matter how many hours or how many games they’ve played or how many years atsumu has watched and played against and with a sakusa who is at home in the thrum and energy of the court, it is still a sight to see him at his very best.

the ball falls on the other side of the court. the crowd roars, and it is all for the solar eclipse of sakusa kiyoomi.

-

  
  
  


_ here is a brick with blood on it. (fact) _ _  
_ _ i am speaking from my heart. (fact) _

_ r.s. _

when he was a kid, his mother had a phase of going to the hundred yen store and buying whatever seemed vaguely useful or interesting to her because it was, in her words, a steal. he never really thought about it; just knew that he liked going grocery shopping with her.

so one day, he and osamu had been left to freely roam whatever the hundred yen store had to offer while their mother went to browse pans, or whatever. naturally, as seven year olds were wont to do, they went to the candy aisle (after the toy aisle, which had been fun but also mostly full of dog toys). 

osamu had gotten bottles of ramune, because he was really into it at the time. atsumu, a little sick of ramune, had reached up and grabbed what looked like the least sweet thing on the shelf that afternoon of 2004, which had been a giant blue bag of salt lemon candy. the lemon on the packaging had been bright, bright yellow and, well. atsumu has always loved bright things.

“’tsumu, tha’s disgus’ing,” osamu had said, looking at the bag with outright derision. he had a few too many bottles of ramune clutched safely in his tiny arms.

atsumu, ever a pinnacle of wit, had replied: “ _ yer _ disgusting.” curious, he asks a beat later: “aren’t ’ya sick of ramune, ’samu?”

and osamu, who loves just as much as atsumu does, had answered: “’m never sick o’ ramune, ’tsumu. have ’ya even tried that?”

“dummie ’samu, ’course i haven’t! s’why ’m gettin’ a bag. duh.”

osamu had still eyed the bag of salt lemon candy with suspicion. “alrigh’, then. don’ be making me eat all that if ’ya don’t like it, ’kay?”

atsumu puffed out his chest. “stop yer worryin’, ’samu! this one’s all mine.”

so it was. they ran back to their mother on the other side of the store, carrying their respective stashes of candy, and all was well.

-

after that afternoon in 2004 where he went home with a bag of salt lemon candy that osamu still felt mildly disgusted by, he had made it a point to prove to osamu that he didn’t need his help to finish the entire bag himself. he decided to get started on it immediately, because he is nothing if not competitive and slightly petty. the first time he popped one in his mouth, all he had tasted was salt.

the intrigue had overruled any feeling of confusion he had over candy that was salty-sour than any form of sweet. after the first piece, he ate another. and another. and another, until his mom had to confiscate it from him lest he ruin his appetite before dinner.

osamu, having grown curious at his brother’s newfound obsession, had tried it a few times. he’d gone from completely disgusted (the stupid sweet tooth, what was he thinking eating one that literally tasted of salt and artificial lemon), to tolerant, to occasionally craving it every once in a while. 

(everyone else, when they ask for candy from atsumu and all he has to give is the salt lemon one he carries a stash of everywhere, calls it weird and finds another person with candy to mooch off of. atsumu doesn’t really care, because it means he has more for himself. and it means he can share with osamu, who’s the only other person who’s had it enough to like it.)

it is that same candy that atsumu has in the pocket of his gym bag, and the same candy he pops in his mouth as he leans back in the seat of the jackals’ bus. tasting salt and sour lemon and the vague sweetness no one really cared to look for, he lets the side of his forehead fall and rest on the window of the bus, still a little warm from the afternoon sun. it’s approaching dusk, and the skies are painted a reddish violet that colors everything else in its violent glory.

everyone is starting to file in the bus. hinata and bokuto have claimed the seats at the back, still bouncing with energy that’s seemingly unlimited. (although atsumu knows that the two will conk out in a few minutes, their heads leaning on the other; the sun and his disciple in radiance, both laid to rest.)

just as atsumu’s about to get a headstart on his own two hour nap, sakusa walks in the bus. atsumu watches the wing spiker with vague interest, letting the candy coat the inside of his mouth, as he surveys the seats in the bus. he notes with some amusement that sakusa immediately turns away from the sunshine duo’s side of the bus, and instead meets his eyes.

atsumu raises an eyebrow, then looks to the empty seat beside him. he moves the candy to one other side of his cheek, letting the salt hit it until it melts enough to lend to sweetness.  _ need a hand? _

sakusa gives no indication he understood atsumu’s weak attempt at telepathy, but he moves towards him nevertheless. pauses, just as he’s directly parallel to atsumu, and stands still.

“hey, omi-kun. need help?” he offers. an olive branch, from your fellow asshole, who’s feeling a little generous from exhaustion. the candy is melting, and all that he tastes is salt.

sakusa gives a nod, but one that atsumu wouldn’t have noticed if he wasn’t focused enough. sakusa continues to stand, and makes no move to sit.

“d'ya want the window seat, omi-omi?” atsumu asks, letting his lips curl into a lazy grin. of course sakusa wasn’t going to make this easy; atsumu would normally pester him, but he’s drained to the bone and sakusa looks a little too spooked for him to make proper jabs.

“if you’re willing,” sakusa replies, not one to back down so easily. 

atsumu lets himself chuckle. he leans back and closes his eyes, and fakes a yawn. “alright, then, omi-kun. maybe i’ll be more generous next time.”

he doesn’t let his eyes be closed for a long time, immediately peeking with one eye when he hears sakusa huff. his smile grows a little wider. this big baby.

for a moment, sakusa looks at the seat like he’s contemplating whether or not to let atsumu win or to fight back when atsumu stands up and walks out into the aisle beside him, feigning another exaggerated yawn; complete with stretches and all. refraining from reaching out to give sakusa a pat on the back, he settles on leaning towards the seats with his arm extended in a perfect imitation of wonderful customer service: “yes, yes, here ‘ya go!”

sakusa heaves a long-suffering sigh, although he does incline his head in thanks. atsumu counts it as a win, and a momentary ceasefire. sakusa slides in to sit down by the window, and atsumu follows once the wing spiker has settled down, careful not to jostle him too much.

by this time, there’s hustle in the front of the bus that signals to them that they’re about to take off, and the candy in atsumu’s mouth has melted enough that he can crush it without cracking his teeth. he bites into it, and hears it shatter into fragments of salt and artificial lemon and corn syrup. he closes his eyes as he leans back into the seat cushion, savoring the last of it.

sakusa, who had previously been staring out the window, turns at the sound. “miya, is that candy?”

atsumu hums, the shards of candy still piercing pinpricks of salt and sour into his tongue. he peeks open one eye. “it is. d’ya want one, omi-kun?”

sakusa pauses. atsumu is about to close his eyes again when he notices sakusa open his hand in a silent affirmation. atsumu snorts; really, for someone who always seemed perpetually unpleasant, sakusa was prone to endearingly cute habits sometimes.

he bends down to dig for the candy he stowed away in the front pocket of his gym bag that he had laid out on the limited floor space they were allowed. hands a piece of that afternoon in 2004 into sakusa’s waiting hand, and gets another one for himself before he zips it up. 

“what is this?” sakusa asks, not unkindly. his already quiet voice is muffled through the mask, and it would’ve slipped atsumu’s notice had their space not been as small as it was. the noise from the sunshine duo and their mad uncles have blurred in the background, leaving their bubble safe and quiet.

“it’s salt an’ lemon. hope ‘ya weren’t expecting anything sweet, ’cause i don’t have any o’ that.”

sakusa hums. “this is fine.” and, like a careful afterthought, “thanks, miya.”

atsumu waves it off. he leans back again, but he doesn’t close his eyes yet. strangely enough, he sort of wants to see sakusa’s reaction to the taste.

it’s not anything weird: people who’ve tried it just had it, made a weird expression once the salt hit, and it was fifty-fifty whether or not they spat it out or were too polite to and just dealt with it until it was gone. then they’d drink some water, ask him why the hell he ate that shit, and cleanse their taste buds with something that was actually sweet and tolerable, and erase the lingering taste of salt and lemon on their tongue. atsumu eventually found it funny enough that he kept bringing the candy, and kept giving it to anyone who hadn’t experienced it yet.

so when sakusa peers at the wrapper, and carefully tears it open with all the care and precision of a surgeon, atsumu is more than a little excited and weirdly touched at the careful way sakusa kiyoomi treats a small piece of candy. he adjusts the way he’s sitting so that he could have a better vantage point to survey his spiker’s expression; it’s not that he  _ wants _ to make sakusa dislike him any more than he already does, or add a little bump in the road in sakusa’s otherwise pleasant day, but he’s  _ curious _ . 

sakusa just  _ looks _ for a moment at the bright fluorescent yellow of the candy, carefully lowers his mask and holds it so it doesn’t make contact with his neck and exposes his mouth enough just to fit the tiny ball of salt and sugar and lemon in. from the angle atsumu is watching sakusa from, he barely notices the spiker’s eyes widen a fraction before he lifts his mask back on.

there’s a moment of silence where atsumu expects sakusa to go  _ no, nevermind, that was disgusting, miya, what the fuck was that _ , until he hears sakusa hum quietly and say, a little warbled around the ball of salt and sugar, “where’d you buy this?”

still waiting, he answers a little breathlessly, “at the hundred yen store.”

sakusa hums again. atsumu can hear the clacking where the candy meets teeth, and assumes that sakusa is moving it around his mouth. “it’s good. can i have another?”

atsumu stares. pauses, because,  _ huh _ —he wasn’t expecting that. hadn’t prepared for that at all.

“oh,” he says out loud, when he remembers how to function. “yeah, sure, omi-kun.” he clenches his fist around the one he’s holding for himself and goes to pick another one for sakusa, one that hasn’t been held for an extended period of time in a hand that’s only been washed with water and no soap. he hadn’t brought sanitizer, and is making a mental note to buy some before going home. “here ‘ya go.” he hands the new one to sakusa, who nods his head in thanks and pockets it in his jacket. “’ya know, i didn’t expect ’ya ta like that, omi-kun.”

sakusa takes a minute before he speaks. “i’ve never liked sweets. and this is interesting.”

“oh,” is all atsumu says in reply, a little dumbstruck. and in a moment of brutal vulnerability: “i’m glad ’ya liked it.”

sakusa nods. he turns to look at the moving scenery outside the window where the sky has gone from a violent reddish purple to a darker lilac and, oh, atsumu hadn’t noticed they were moving already. 

feeling a little off-kilter, atsumu offers another piece of himself: “y’know, a lot of times, people spit it out instead. said it was weird, or whatever.”

at this, sakusa laughs. “it  _ is _ weird. i still like it, though.”

“yeah,” atsumu says, his chest all warm. “i’m glad.”

he leans back into his seat, leaving just enough space to make sure he doesn’t accidentally brush against sakusa when they hit the bumps. tearing open the wrapper of the candy he’s been holding all this time, he pops it in, closes his eyes, and tastes salt and lemon and sugar.

-

for what it’s worth, it’s not like atsumu has ever truly, wholeheartedly believed that he was ever unlovable.

he’s selfish, and a bit of an asshole, and he could be downright mean at times. he’s never known how to let any potentially functioning relationship co-exist with volleyball, nor does he know how to maintain relationships without the pretense of the sport, so he doesn’t do either. (osamu is, by birthright, an extension of atsumu. their relationship exists whether or not there is volleyball, and it’s why atsumu values his stupid brother more than he would ever admit.) he is the salt and the lemon that no one has ever liked the combination of together, because he is  _ too much _ and  _ too weird _ and  _ this isn’t fucking sweet _ .

but despite all this, he still hears girls screaming during his serves and set ups, hears people cheer appreciatively for a particularly good play. with inarizaki, everyone knew he had a rotten personality but loved him anyways; if not for overexposure and an increase in their tolerance for miya atsumu, it was for the fact that atsumu had helped them reach heights they were only starting to dream of. when atsumu is loved, he is loved for what  _ he _ loves—which is volleyball.

atsumu has only ever loved volleyball, has only ever known to mold himself to whatever shape volleyball asks of him, and contort himself to the lengths volleyball demands from him. atsumu would do anything and everything if it meant he would get to play more, and stay on the court longer. if this isn’t love, then what is.

it’s easy, making himself a slave to volleyball’s whims. because volleyball, for all that it demands of him, has never asked for a sacrifice he was never willing to make. because when volleyball asked him if he was willing to go pro, to keep shaping his life around it, he went: yeah. that’s no question. i’ve lived and loved and breathed you for all my life, what’s the point of stopping now?

because here’s the thing: atsumu loves easily and loves very much, but he loves rarely. it is the reason he has only ever loved volleyball, has latched onto it after being enrolled in a beginner class with his twin when they were seven, and little else had stayed once he had grown out of his childhood. it is the reason he only ever finds comfort in the taste of salt and sugar and lemon, and how it reminds him of the afternoon in 2004 where it was just him and his brother and the candy aisle as the universe. it is the reason he survived the entirety of high school only ever in love with kita, never looking twice at anyone who had been able to express more interest towards him than his captain ever did. it is the reason he has never loved again, and the reason he keeps french vanilla everything and the reason osamu knows to always, always give him a side of umeboshi with any onigiri he gets. he loves, not for reciprocation; he just does. and when atsumu loves, it is with an unending devotion that matches the expanse of the seas and the oceans. he  _ loves _ , so deeply, it is all consuming.

and maybe this is the reason why volleyball has been his only stable relationship: volleyball could never drown in his love for it. volleyball  _ thrives _ on passion, very often requires devotion, and atsumu has both of these in spades. volleyball is not a person, who is turbulent and moody and with different needs that change and grow over time; volleyball cannot look him in the eye and say, “you are suffocating me.” it does not matter, see: all his flaws and shortcomings as a person he more than makes up for in his sets and serves and digs and receives. and volleyball does not care for his flaws and shortcomings, so long as he keeps the ball in the air.

so here’s the second point of the story: people want freedom. history has never been about people getting along; it is about people who have wanted more than they were given, and fought tooth and nail to get what they deserved. people were never meant to stay in cages; they were meant to live how they see fit. it is the reason, after all, why social movements are so revolutionary. these people live with shackles around their wrists and ankles, handed down from the chains that used to encase their ancestors, but they fight. and when they fight, they fight for freedom.

it is terrifying to think that love could very easily be shackles that weigh a person down, and even more terrifying to reckon with the idea that you could very well be at the receiving end of a revolution. and atsumu, who loves deeply and boundlessly, is terrified of drowning anyone.

there have been people, see. people who have seen the outside version of miya atsumu—a powerhouse setter, a division one player, funny, good-looking, wild miya atsumu—and thought: maybe. there have been people who have seen the bare minimum of what atsumu has to offer, people who have seen how he has loved volleyball, people who have heard he was incapable of redirecting this same passion towards a person and think, in mild, offending, thoughtless curiosity: hey, what is it like to be loved by you?

no one has gotten the answer yet, and atsumu will never give them one; they aren’t volleyball, nor are they volleyball-adjacent. atsumu cannot love without volleyball, nor can he be loved without volleyball. he is not unlovable, he thinks. just difficult to love. no one has ever bothered to try.

-

when they finally arrive back at where they started, everyone is more or less asleep and unwilling to move from the nest they’ve carved for themselves out of faux leather and cotton insides. what was left of dusk had now turned to completely evening, the only lights being the bus’ headlights and the sliver of the moon that had wanted to show itself.

atsumu comes to, blearily and slowly, feeling the sticky sweetness of leftover sleep and sugar in his mouth. there are a few people talking in the background, and judging from their volume and the slurred way they pronounce the syllables of words they’re trying to say, they had also just woken up. atsumu stares at the back of the seat in front of him through squinted eyes as the world centers itself again.

he’s still trying to reacquaint himself with reality when he hears a quiet whine coming from his left side, and promptly wakes up properly when he realizes that it was sakusa who had made that adorable, tiger cub-like noise. brain still loading, atsumu doesn’t get to load up his stash of teases when sakusa also turns to meet his wide-eyed gaze. 

sakusa, who is squinting just as he had when he woke up, looks even more disgruntled than usual. it is hard to fear death when the grim reaper himself is glaringly similar to a kitten who’d been jostled during its naptime. “what’re you looking at, miya?” not waiting for a response, he turns to look at the window when he notices all the lights in the bus turned on. “it’s late, huh.”

“sleep well, omi-omi?” atsumu asks, the teasing lilt of his kansai drawl softened by sleep and the sight of waking up to sakusa kiyoomi. his turdy dick heart’s setting off again, and it’s a little hard to breathe.

sakusa doesn’t answer, which disappoints him a little, but atsumu can’t bring himself to be too worked up about it. sakusa still looks like a lost kitten, and it’s doing a lot for his weak heart. 

faintly, atsumu starts to register people’s voices increase in volume and in energy gradually, as well as the stomps of the MSBY team eager to leave and go home. shouyou, who had just woken up, makes himself extremely known; and thank god for that bumbling hunk of orange, because atsumu is starting to think there is very little that could get him to look away. 

“miya,” sakusa says, all gruff from sleep, and all atsumu could think about is how the hell did sakusa manage to fall asleep with a mask on his face. “is there something wrong?”

“hm? why’d’ya say so, omi-kun?”

“nothing, except for the staring.”

ah, shoot. he’s never mastered subtlety. “is it bothering ’ya?”

sakusa chooses to not dignify that with a response. he pointedly looks past atsumu and at the wave of people leaving the bus, and says, “aren’t you getting off?”

atsumu laughs, because it is all he could do without being forced into honesty when he is not awake enough for it. there is no reason for why atsumu should feel so reluctant to leave this bubble they’ve built for themselves this one bus ride home behind. so he bends down to get his bag and stands up, a lazy smile on his lips as he looks at sakusa. then pointedly looks to the stream of people waiting to get off as a silent  _ see why i can’t? _

sakusa scoffs. but he makes no further comment. so they wait.

the silence lasts for about thirty seconds when sakusa breaks it, distracting atsumu who had taken to leaning against the seat in front of him waiting for the people to leave first.

“sorry, omi-kun, i didn’t catch that.”

“i said thanks,” sakusa says, clearly distressed at the fact that he had to repeat it. for all the mask covers of his face, he is still remarkably expressive. he looks like he bit into something bitter—or sour. he talks slowly. “for... you know. the window seat. and the candy.”

atsumu, caught off-guard, just looks at sakusa. “oh, sure,” he says when he remembers how to work his vocal cords. (there’ve been a lot of malfunctions, lately.) “s’no problem.”

sakusa nods, and his expression smooths out. feeling a little hungry for more, atsumu continues, “wouldn’t’ya do the same for me?”

sakusa leans back in his seat, and closes his eyes. his mask shifts slightly, and atsumu has never despised it more than now because he’s willing to bet that under it is one of those rare, collector’s edition sakusa kiyoomi smiles. he huffs out a laugh. “ask me on another day.”

“rude,” atsumu says, pouting. he goes to rest his chin on his folded hands atop the seat, when a question pops into his head. “hey, omi-kun, you said ’ya didn’t like sweets, didn’t’ya?”

sakusa hums. “mm. i did say that. why?”

atsumu turns his head to face sakusa. “why’d’ya ask for candy?”

sakusa shrugs. “i don’t know either.” he pauses, and oh, does it drive atsumu crazy hearing how carefully he always speaks because it is breaking his heart, how gentle this is. it scares him, a little. “i guess i just wanted to try.”

“oh,” is all he says, because what is he to say to that? atsumu stares, and blinks a few times to make sure that it is in fact sakusa kiyoomi in front of him. how is it that sakusa knows nothing—not about the candy, not about 2004, not about the bleeding heart in his chest—but he had said that? what the hell is he going to say?  _ hey, thanks, no one ever bothered to do that except for my brother. hey, thanks for liking my comfort candy, it means an indescribable amount to me. hey, thanks, and oh, another question: is that all you’re willing to try? _

vaguely, he registers the din of voices get quieter, until he turns and sees that the other people left have reached the front. “oya,” he says, feeling a little out of sorts. “omi-omi.”

sakusa nods, and goes to stand up. atsumu hoists his bag on his shoulder, and goes to leave first.

if sakusa notices atsumu slowing his pace so that he doesn’t get left behind, he makes no mention of it.

-

_ ringing. ringing. dial tone: you have reached miya osamu. would you like to leave a message? _

“hey, ’samu, it’s ’tsumu. jus’ wonderin’, did’ya still like ramune? call me back.”

_ incoming call: bastard brother _

_ call duration: 4 hours, 2 minutes, and 16 seconds. _

-

snippets from the call:

“’ya motherfucker, are you alright? who the hell calls me and asks about ramune when he had a fuckin’  _ game _ a while ago that he  _ lost _ , and oh, it’s fuckin’  _ two a.m. _ , ’tsumu, did’ya get hit in the back o’ yer head when i wasn’t lookin’?! and was it on tape?!”

“oi, shut the hell up ’ya turd, what kinda brother are ’ya to go on and make fun o’ me when i’m tryin’ to be nice and sentimental?!”

“ew, don’t do that. it doesn’t fit ’ya.”

“WHAT THE HELL DID’YA SAY—”

“shut the fuck up ’ya bleached blond boombox, rintarou’s sleeping right now.”

a voice in the background on osamu’s side:  _ “too late, demon twins, i’m up. would it kill both of you to sleep at a reasonable time?” _

_ “sorry, babe, we’ll keep it down.” _

“the fuck kinda shit is this  _ babe _ shit—can we get ta talkin’ ’bout  _ me _ , now, i had a  _ game _ and i was the one who  _ called _ , shitty ’samuuuu—”

-

“so.” the sound of glass clinking on a marble counter, and something being poured in it. “what’s yer real reason for calling me this late?”

“can’t i—”

“no, you can’t, and stop changin’ the subject. ain’t ’ya s’posed t’be conked out by now? what’s up.”

silence. “nothin’s up, ’samu.  _ and before  _ ’ya start goin’ off again, ’m not lyin’.”

a pause. “okay.” rustling, rustling. “guess what happened a while ago while ’ya were gettin’ yer asses kicked that second set…”

-

“y’know, i’ve been thinking. i dunno, s’just. you remember bokkun, and shou-kun, right? yeah, those two. they’re great. ’kaashi-san went ta visit bokkun, did’ya know? ain’t his job back in tokyo? yeah. yeah, pretty far, huh.

“mm. did suna come by, earlier? to onigiri miya? the two o’ ’ya are real sweet. shut up, let me have this.

“did i have anyone?” atsumu laughs. “yer real dumb, ’samu. did’ya think i’d be talkin’ to ’ya right now if i did?”

-

“d’ya remember that time when mom took us to the hundred yen store? yeah, the one with the huge candy aisles. what about it? oh, remember that candy i bought that ’ya spat out the first time ’ya had it—” atsumu cackles, osamu can be heard yelling on the other line. “yeah, yeah, ’ya big weenie, now shut up or yer fiance’s gonna knock ’ya out with a cast iron.

“hm? yeah, i still have it. oh, did’ya know, ’samu? i found someone who actually liked it. could’ya believe that! hm? oh, it was omi-kun, sakusa kiyoomi. ’ya remember him? yeah, he was the MSBY hitter a while ago. yeah, ace of itachiyama back in high school. mm, still wears that mask everywhere.” atsumu snickers. “that neon ass jersey, d’ya think he liked it ’cause they’re the same color?” more cackles.

“mm, he really did like it, ’ya know! what’s tha—’ya asshole, ’samu!  _ what kinda freak likes that shit _ , are yer callin’ me a freak?! and don’t ’ya like it too?! don’t give me that  _ yer normal _ shit when ’ya—”

-

“oi, ’tsumu. i still like ramune.”

“alright. i’ll buy ’ya some.”

“don’t get too many, ’ya dingus. i know yer gonna deliver five huge boxes or some shit. we ain’t got enough space for that.”

atsumu hums. he looks at the clock, and the glass of milk he’s long since drained. “hey.”

“hm?”

“thanks, ’samu.”

“get to sleep, ’tsumu.”

“mm. call ’ya again soon.”

-

(atsumu places an order for two bulk sized boxes of ramune, and has it delivered to osamu and suna’s apartment. he tosses in a bag of his salt lemon candy, and texts osamu to send him a recording of suna trying it.

suna coughs then spits it out, empties a bottle of water, and gives him the finger as he walks menacingly towards the camera and intercepts it. osamu can be heard cackling in the background. atsumu watches the video five times, laughing all the while.

the sun comes through the window. it is the brightest his apartment has ever been.)

-

  
  
  


_ dear lily: _ _  
_ _ my mother taught me many things, _ _  
_ _ but she did not teach me this. _

_ b.d.r. _

for a brief period when he was growing up, atsumu had only played harvest moon: friends of mineral town. he was six, and a completionist at heart, so he had set to work on making the best damn farm he could. then, he found out about npc heart events, and so he set to work on that, too. 

(after getting rich, of course; he’s not going to give up after his character decided to leave the city in pursuit of a better life and was greeted with the sight of an ugly farm. and he’s most certainly not going to ask someone to stay with him for the rest of rpg life while his field grows weeds instead of yield.)

the goal was to get every possible marriage candidate to reach their max heart level. as dutiful as a man on a mission, he’d camped out on the masterdoc he’d compiled from what he managed to copy from the wiki and forums. memorized their favorite gifts, their schedule, the right things to say. and their hearts had gone from a small, barely noticeable grey pebble, to a huge, huge red heart that nearly engulfed their chests with the size of it. atsumu had heard of red giants, had heard that they were always at risk of collapsing. he looked at the pixel red heart on his screen and thought that it looked painful.

at six, atsumu had wondered if it was possible to have a heart that big. at twenty-three, atsumu remembers and wonders how their chests hadn’t gotten crushed with the weight of it.

then he remembers the other secret marriage candidates—the ones whose hearts were always tucked away and hidden, and had only ever appeared once certain requirements were met and they were finally in your heart your arms your home. remembers how, at six years old, he had tried to marry the harvest goddess. laughs, at twenty-three, because he has stayed the goddamn same.

-

“omi-omi!” 

sakusa turns from where he’s about to reach for the door handle. he’s wearing the MSBY jacket in all its yellow glory, his gym bag hoisted high up on his shoulders. “what’s the matter, miya?”

atsumu thinks it should be criminal the way the sun chose sakusa kiyoomi. swathed in dripping rays of gold, sakusa kiyoomi looks as much of the god he is played up to be. sakusa kiyoomi, a solar eclipse, looks like he is at heaven’s gates, is heaven itself, and houses all that is bright and wonderful. and it is at that moment that atsumu realizes he is willing to be plunged into the depths of hell should this man of moon and sun wish it.

“saw ’ya were ’bout ta leave.” his heart of hearts is locked in his throat, and it’s a feat he managed not to choke. atsumu remembers red giants made out of pixels and thinks that this is how it feels to encase one in his ribcage. 

“and that is of your concern because?”

“don’t.”

sakusa’s eyes widen. curse his goddamn red giant. “miya—”

“i meant, uh—d-don’t leave without me! ’ya know, uh, s-s’not very nice o’ ’ya ta shut the door when ’m literally right behind ’ya!”

and there, he’s done it, he’s saved it, he thinks. sakusa relaxes, and it might be the sun casting shadows because atsumu swears he could see sakusa’s eyes crease ever so slightly. but just as the sun shifts, it goes with it. 

“your point?” sakusa asks, and if atsumu were a little more observant and a little less panicked he might’ve picked up on the amusement in sakusa’s voice.

“literally jus’ said it, ’ya weirdo,” atsumu grumbles and pouts. he crosses his arms and huffs and pretends that it isn’t an attempt at caging in his rabbit heart from cracking open his ribs. “i coulda gotten hit, ’ya know! who’s gon’ toss to ’ya if i’m gone!”

sakusa keeps looking at him, and atsumu is about to go insane when sakusa says, “let’s go, then.”

“c-come again?”

sakusa adjusts his bag on his shoulder, and moves to open the door. “we can’t have you be gone from practice just because you’re too much of a loser who got hit by a door.”

atsumu stomps over, his chest about to fall through his goddamn feet. sakusa is waiting by the door, holding it open and looking at him like he’s waiting. “who’re ’ya callin’ a loser—”

“there’s only one viable candidate between the two of us, and it’s not me.”

“oi, omi-omi, say that again—!”

-

there is a church that atsumu walks past every time he walks the distance to and fro his apartment and the training center. it is tall and imposing, with a fresh coat of white paint that makes it look untouched. when the bells ring, it feels like god is about to strike his hammer down any minute.

in front of the church was a giant statue of st. peter. unlike the church, with its fictitious purity, this one has been left at the mercy of the weather; it is chipped in almost every corner, and the stains left by the storms of the world have branded themselves into peter’s flimsy mirage. atsumu, ever an appreciator of beauty, has always thought it ugly.

when atsumu walks past it now, past the children playing tag in front of heaven’s gatekeeper, he almost thinks it looks sad. it makes no sense that people would see this chunk of ceramic and concrete and believe it as worthy of worship. he looks up at the stone-faced shepherd and sees it wither away with the force of time. the sun is setting fully, now, and the orange glow kindling the white makes it look like it’s on fire.

it’s funny how the sun kisses the statue and yet it still looks like a shell of what it is supposed to be. this is not god; this is not the one who guards heaven and who heaven guards. this is peter, who is at heaven’s gates and condemns people like atsumu who have never belonged there, and he looks every bit as ugly as the karmic retribution of angry people has willed it. nothing about it looks heavenly. atsumu continues walking, and does not spare another glance.

-

they walk home together until they have to split by the intersection right before the white church and the ugly peter statue, during which the sun had felt generous enough to paint everything in an incandescent orange glow. atsumu had never seen the streets this bright before.

-

sakusa is just pretty, atsumu thinks later tucked in his bed, still he’s trying to placate his overexcited heart. sakusa is pretty, and his heart has always been fond of pretty. it doesn’t help that sakusa is every bit as interesting as he is gorgeous, but this is momentary infatuation, he reasons. it always has been, because there is no one else like kita and his vanilla hand cream and his care packages with umeboshi candy, and there is no reason for it to change. atsumu closes his eyes, and tries not to think of wavy black curls and two moles and obsidian eyes.

-

sooner or later, it becomes a routine for the two of them. they coincidentally finish cleaning up right after training a few too many times, it starts to feel wrong to leave the gym without the other. (and if atsumu rushes through his showers and post-shower routines just so he could reach sakusa finishing up, then that’s for only him to know.)

so they walk home together, and atsumu starts anticipating practice’s end just as he wakes up itching for it to start. atsumu’s heart seems to have missed the memo that this is a normal  _ thing _ now, because he still has to calm it down for five to ten minutes after the two of them part ways.

in twenty minutes every day, atsumu learns more about sakusa kiyoomi than he has ever hoped to, and keeps the information in the safe inside his heart that houses all that is to be held dear to him. because sakusa, whose recorded injuries include a twisted ankle that hadn’t been much of a long term detriment more so than it was a short term annoyance and a knee injury that he has to be wary of moving forward, whose favorite color is green, an ivy green, whose drunk face doesn’t really look like a drunk face except for the blush staining his porcelain skin, whose taste buds seem to actually like a candy that atsumu has been holding onto for a long time, whose mask stays on no matter the occasion and atsumu is always one step away from wanting to tear it off his face, whose moonlight countenance shines best when he is lit by the glare of an angry sun—

sakusa lives alone, in his own house paid for by his parents and (will be) repaid by himself. sakusa went to college, moreso out of familial obligation to not be the only one to not have a tertiary education, and took up kinesiology because he didn’t want to waste his four years. sakusa tried out for a few other v.league teams, but chose MSBY because he wanted to make a name for himself, wanted a piece of what it was like being the challenger instead of the challenged. sakusa likes umeboshi, too, but doesn’t like umeboshi candy. sakusa’s best relationships are the ones made through volleyball, and it is this reason why he has only ever dated one other time (which was ended by his ex, because sakusa had loved volleyball more than he loved him). sakusa likes the smell of lemon and lavender and soap. sakusa likes his lemon candy, and had asked for more of it again.

atsumu files this all away in the office drawers of his chest, and more of them, and more of them, and—

ah, maybe this is how those hearts overflow.

-

it would be a lovely sight, atsumu thinks, on another night, to see sakusa kiyoomi’s image preserved as ceramic and permanently illuminated by the sun. there would be a church of white with kiyoomi’s statue and atsumu, who has always chased after the sun and is now holding in his heart of hearts a man of moon and sunlight, would be a fool not to worship it. 

-

_ call in progress: bastard brother, golden pisshead _

_ 2 hours, 28 minutes, 31 seconds _

“hey, ’samu, how’d’ya end up with suna again?”

“...what’s this about, ’tsumu.”

“just answer, ’ya dick. we were still in high school, right? how’d ’ya know since then?”

“i didn’t know, then.”

“you know it now.”

“it’s... like making a soft-boiled egg.”

“there ’ya go again with yer food, can ’ya explain it t’me without making me hungry—”

“shut the fuck up, ’tsumu, let me finish. s’like, soft-boiled eggs are fuckin’ hard t’cook, right. they need a timer, an’ everythin’, since it takes so long to happen but once it does ’ya gotta be right on the mark, or else it’ll overcook. it takes a shitton o’ practice, and you make more bad eggs than ’ya do good ones. an’, i dunno, okay, but the moment i knew it sorta felt like finally gettin’ that first soft-boiled egg right on the mark.

“it’s... it takes time, y’know. and ’ya do your best every time, okay, like yer never makin’ it with the intention o’ messin’ up. but you do, and it stinks, but ’ya just keep doing it ’cause you wanna get it right at least once. and then when ’ya do get it right, ’ya wanna keep getting it right.”

a pause.

“that. that makes sense, i guess. what do you do when ’ya fuck up the egg?”

“’ya still eat it, y’know. the bad egg, unless it’s like. raw, or shit. but you still eat it, ’cause it’s egg. and if ’ya fuck up—well, ’ya big volleyball idiot, what do you do when ’ya fuck up a toss?”

“keep tossing.”

a snap on the other line. “’ya got it.”

-

“don’t ’ya ever get, i dunno, scared? o’ makin’ the egg?”

“hm?”

“the soft-boiled egg. you said ’ya fuck up a lot. didn’t ’ya get scared, before it? o’ wastin’ the egg, or somethin’?”

“what if ’ya didn’t?”

“...”

“’course i got scared. but it’s egg, ’tsumu, and it’s cooking: ’ya learn from yer fuckups, most o’ the time. but there is a time when ’ya get it right, an’ it makes sense from that point. it’s all worth it, to reach that point.”

-

kita likes his eggs hard boiled.

this is one of the many things atsumu notices from nights of training camps and mornings of shared breakfast. kita’s bento, when he looks particularly happy to be opening it, always had a boiled egg, and a tofu hamburg steak.

(osamu first calls him out on the fact that he watches kita enough to: a) know the contents of his lunchbox, b) know when he’s happy? because it apparently isn’t obvious? and, c) know that the egg is hard boiled, which means he watches kita  _ eat _ . atsumu, who is in love with love and maybe in love with kita, plugs his ears and continues to look.)

and so, on a rare day when kita falls sick and has to be absent on a school day, atsumu takes it upon himself to return the nonexistent debt he’d filed away once he was greeted with the convenience store bag filled with the umeboshi candy and tuna bento box and gatorade. it is unfortunate that atsumu does not know how to cook beyond pouring the hot water to the marked line in an instant noodle cup, and even more unfortunate that he has to ask  _ osamu _ for help.

osamu makes fun of him, of course. but he sucks it up, because goddammit, this is for the love of his life, and he will  _ make him _ some hard boiled eggs. 

( _ osamu _ also tells him that maybe hard boiled eggs aren’t the best thing to eat while you’re down with a fever, but that didn’t make sense to atsumu. if  _ he _ were sick, he’d want to eat his favourites. so he promptly ignores osamu, and listens instead to the advice that was  _ actually _ helpful.)

hard boiled, according to osamu, was the easiest way to cook an egg. it is easy enough that, as osamu constantly reiterates, a dingus like atsumu would be able to do it. and he’d done it, in fact, on his first try. he is miya atsumu; of course he’d be able to do this.

so he packs it up when he’s done, and goes to the convenience store to pick up a canned coffee and yakisoba pan. and there, with a note signed with his name, is his care package.

kita answers the door himself when atsumu knocks, and you’d never know he was sick if not for the redness around his nose and his watery eyes. 

“oh, atsumu. hello,” kita greets, and his voice sounds like it was run through a shredder. “what brought ’ya here?”

“i heard ’ya were sick, so i came by to give ’ya this! a care package!” atsumu says, grinning and thrumming with pride. “i hope ’ya get better soon, kita-san!”

kita looks at the convenience store bag that atsumu holds out, and with a small smile on his face, reaches out to pick it from atsumu’s fingers with care. he looks into the bag, and he huffs out a small laugh.

“thank you, atsumu. i’ll eat it when i’m well.”

atsumu goes home with a spring in his step, and the care package waits until kita has recovered enough to be able to eat solids without puking his guts out.

\- 

there are these  _ moments _ . and atsumu, thanks to years of learning how to attune himself with his spikers, would be a joke of a setter if he had missed the point where he and sakusa’s dynamic had shifted. and him being the way that he is, he has memorized every moment and categorized them neatly in the office drawers of his heart; all that is left is to pin-point where exactly it started. here are his top contenders:

a.) the time after practice, a few weeks after his and sakusa’s tentative agreement to walk home together. he had gotten used to rushing through his post-practice rituals since sakusa finishes much earlier than he does, and pre- _ whatever-this-is _ , atsumu had always been the latest one to leave. and this day had started off magnanimously shitty for reasons he can’t remember, and his rituals were the only time in the day that he got to properly unwind the tension in his shoulders. before he knew it, he was running an extra twenty minutes late.

and so he rushes the rest, all the while his heart feels like it’s threatening to burst because it is far too  _ early _ , he is bad at maintaining relationships but let him have  _ this _ —this fragile something after training where he gets to walk the path home without loneliness hanging over his shoulders, this unspoken undefined agreement where someone listens to him for longer than he has to. he cannot lose  _ this _ , not yet.

he manages to towel off his hair and properly wear a shirt after messing it up a few times because he tried to fit his head through the wrong holes only to find an empty locker room—save for sakusa, who is sleepily nodding off on the bench by his locker.

“hi,” is all atsumu could say. sakusa is blinking his eyes at him, and atsumu feels like he’s on the verge of tears.

“mm... you took a while. you ready now?” sakusa asks. his eyes are still half-open, blinking slowly. time comes to a stop, and it feels like this is the universe telling him  _ here, you can have this. _

atsumu looks; takes the time to watch sakusa still blinking himself into awareness. he feels a sudden, terrible urge to walk over and run his hands through the hair that’s falling into sakusa’s face. 

the worst part is that he feels like sakusa might actually allow it.

b.) that time when sakusa gets sick, which shouldn’t be all that surprising except for the fact that it  _ is _ , because it’s sakusa, and atsumu feels like he’s back in high school panicking over making a care package. and no, it’s not like he can make hard-boiled eggs because stupid high school ’tsumu was dumb enough to think that that wouldn’t be a pain to chew and swallow when  _ everything _ makes you want to puke. and current atsumu’s dumb enough to let his mind wander off during practice, because the way he feels so off-kilter without omi-kun is frankly a little terrifying.

shouyou, who has grown to be more observant both on the court and off it, had offered to spike more for him. it distracts him enough to actually focus on something, for which he is grateful for.

(no one walks home with him, and he feels the loneliness he’d gotten acquainted with earlier in the year creep back up again.)

he goes to the convenience store instead of going home and buys blue gatorade because it’s the one flavor he sees sakusa ever drink, along with a few ingredients for chazuke, because it is the one other thing he knows how to cook after finding out that hard-boiled eggs aren’t the greatest thing to eat while sick. he grabs some umeboshi, because he  _ knows _ sakusa likes it, and includes a few salt-lemon candies in the package.

sakusa, thankfully, answers the door when atsumu knocks. he looks awful; his hair, which somehow manages to look artfully curly all the time, now more closely resembles a bird’s nest or a tumbleweed, and his mask is on but it does nothing to hide the ruddiness of his cheeks nor the redness and teariness of his eyes. sniffing, he asks, “miya, what are you doing here.”

atsumu, who is no longer a teenager, asks in a single breath, “can i use yer kitchen? i’ll clean after, i promise, an’ i showered before i got here, and i even sanitized my hands!”

“...you came here for a  _ favor _ ?” and god, no, sakusa looks mad, he’s sick he’s not supposed to be mad—

“no, no, ’course not! ’m gonna make yer some chazuke, alright, i knew you were sick so i didn’t want ’ya to suffer in yer big house alone.”

sakusa stares at him, and atsumu is getting an apology ready when he says, “oh. okay. uh, leave your shoes here.”

right after that, sakusa immediately turns heel and walks back into his living room, feet moving at a pace faster than he usually takes. atsumu pays no mind as he toes off his shoes and pumps a fist in the air, feeling like he’s won a little more than just permission to use the kitchen.

c.) that night, when they were walking home and it had gotten a little later than expected because atsumu had stopped rushing his post-practice rituals ever since he found out that sakusa would have waited anyway. in the night, the city lights glow and make up for what it had lost of the sun, and like moths to a fire they had walked towards the vending machine right by the parking lot that had their favorite strawberry milk brand. it was cold that night, and sakusa’s typically pale cheeks had a flush high enough to be seen even with his mask on. but sakusa is sakusa, and he was well-prepared enough to have packed gloves, a scarf, and a jacket along. because atsumu is atsumu, the extent of his defenses against the cold was a puffed jacket he had stolen from osamu. 

they were drinking their milk, and atsumu must have been shivering worse than he thought because sakusa had sighed, removed the glove on his right hand, and prodded atsumu’s hand gripping the carton to fit it onto him. atsumu had sanitized, of course, a new habit of his now; it was the only reason sakusa would even go that far. but he did it anyway.

“you’ll get sick again,” atsumu says, trying to refuse.

“so it’s okay if it’s you who gets sick instead?” he shoots back, and takes advantage of the moment atsumu is stunned into silence to slip the glove on. grabs the carton from atsumu’s slack grip and slides the other one on. gently, he says, “i’m fine, i got a scarf and everythin’. ’m not gonna get sick, so you better not, either.” coughs, and adds, “we have a game soon, remember?”

atsumu, still caught up on the fact that he’s wearing sakusa’s gloves that sakusa  _ willingly gave to him _ almost misses sakusa’s slip into kansai-ben. but sakusa has gotten somehow more flushed than he already was, and atsumu’s heart feels itself give into weakness.

“yeah, okay, omi-kun,” he says, lowering his voice to not break the fragility of this bubble they’ve carved for themselves on a cold night in osaka. he lets himself smile, despite it. “can’t have either of us get sick, yeah?”

sakusa nods, and the soft crease in his eyes tells atsumu all that he needs to know. he hands atsumu his milk back and says, “mm. can’t have that.”

d.) that new year’s eve party, where the married men had brought their spouses and the engaged ones (or almost engaged ones) had brought their fiances (or almost fiances), and sakusa and atsumu had stayed by the bar, polishing off the champagne. how even though they had drifted to talk to different people, at the end of the night they had ended up back where they started. how, when the countdown started, sakusa had looked at him and he looked back.

amidst the cheers and kisses, they clink their glasses instead, and let it linger.

e.) that afternoon in amsterdam, when atsumu excuses himself to take a walk around the city he’s heard so much about from osamu and suna the last time they called. and he loves the MSBY team, loves his people, but his head is full and he needs some quiet. just as he leaves the hotel building and is contemplating whether to go left or right from there, he hears the sound of footsteps behind him. it is none other than sakusa kiyoomi, and despite atsumu’s earlier goal of being alone, he can’t find it in himself to mind. 

sakusa takes one look at his face and grabs his gloved hand and starts taking them somewhere, and after a few minutes of walking sakusa brings them to a secluded spot with a view of the city.

while atsumu’s brain is still trying to catch up, sakusa lets his hand go and walks over to the railing and leans against it, his eyes gazing upon the city and the eventual sunset.

“you probably wanted to go sightseeing,” sakusa says. “sorry. you looked like you needed some place to think. and you didn’t tell me to stop, so i just assumed.”

atsumu stares, and laughs because there was no point in trying to hide from this man who so easily sees through him, and walks over to where sakusa is. he looks at the cityscape for a few moments, and asks, “aren’t’ya gonna ask me what i’m thinkin’ about?”

sakusa huffs out a breath, and atsumu can already imagine the smile underneath the mask. “no, atsumu, because unlike  _ some _ people, i can live without having to know every given thought at every given time.” 

the first-name slip does not miss atsumu’s ears. but, like many else that day in amsterdam, it had been one of many pieces that sent his brain into overdrive to the point he could not linger on it, lest he do something similar to that time in high school with the roses and the vanilla hand cream.

other than a few soft quips traded back and forth, they watch the sunset in relative silence. murmurs of conversation flit in and out. atsumu looks at sakusa looking at the city and thinks back to how he left the hotel, expecting to take in the city sights around while pestering osamu for directions, but had gotten sakusa kiyoomi and the sunset instead. and he thinks to how he had wanted space from the people he’s learned to live with, but sakusa had somehow been the exception to that.

(remembers the way it felt when sakusa had held his gloved hand as he pulled him to this spot, and briefly entertains the thought that maybe he’s the exception to a few things, too. then he stamps it down, because he can’t have his impulsive reckless heart ruin another good day.)

“how’d ’ya know about this place, omi-kun?” he asks, at some point. the sun has almost completely set.

“we’d visited a lot when i was a child,” sakusa says. “i went here when i didn’t want to be alone since they were always working, and they just let me walk around. the hotel was in a familiar street, so i knew the way.”

atsumu hums. “it’s quiet here, huh.”

sakusa turns to look at him, lifting his elbows from where he was leaning. “we could go back now, if you want. or maybe you wanted to sightsee.”

atsumu smiles. “nah, omi-kun. i don’t mind. tell me more about the city?”

in the almost-darkness of the evening, he sees sakusa’s shoulders relax. he tells stories, atsumu listens. by the end of the night, atsumu is positive that sakusa kiyoomi could take him anywhere, and it is all he could do to follow.

f.) all of them, every single one. and miya atsumu, who eats what he loves and lets himself be consumed by love in an act of equivalent exchange—in an act of  _ love _ , is a goddamn fool for thinking it could ever have been only a single moment.

-

like many other things between the two of them, the agreement to sit with each other on bus rides is unspoken. the same way it was when they became the designated assholes in a team full of sunshine, or the way sakusa now answers to variations of  _ omi-kun  _ after vehemently rejecting it at the start, or the way their walks home have melded naturally into their everyday routines—no one really cements it through words. it just is. 

atsumu rolls with the punches, and this is one of those that really aims for his heart. 

but it just is, now, and so when sakusa heads into the bus he goes into a beeline for the fourth row from the front and reclaims his designated window seat, atsumu could only follow. he is but a mortal man, falling prey to sakusa kiyoomi the way moths do to the light.

they had won the match, so the day ends with a bone-deep exhaustion that feels satisfying at the edges, almost like pressing into a bruise. when atsumu sinks into the leather seats that have become unspokenly theirs, it feels like his body unfurls from where it’s been curled up in tension the entire day. 

he closes his eyes as he lets his body mold itself to the shape of his seat, and lets himself think. they won, again. another step towards cementing MSBY’s prestige, another step to furthering himself as a division one setter in the monster generation, another step towards his first promise. volleyball has always made him happy, and another victory meant he was all the more close to being happier. and that was good, because that meant he could rub it in osamu’s face when they’re older and he could say that he chose the right path.

strangely enough, it doesn’t feel as good to think about that now. 

atsumu feels a tap on his hand and it brings him back to the moment, back to the bus, back to being beside sakusa kiyoomi, and he lets himself laugh. he opens his eyes to, predictably, sakusa looking at him, and atsumu sits up a little straighter. reaches into the pocket of the gym bag still on his lap, to pull out a candy that has evolved from being  _ his _ to  _ theirs _ , and he ignores the way his heart stutters as he hands it over to sakusa, taking care not to touch.

which brings him to the second part of his trail of thought, where he had previously left off a few paragraphs ago in favor of sleeping through an unwelcome yet expected revelation, who is sucking on a piece of salt-lemon candy right now.

atsumu makes a lot of promises, and very rarely does he not see them through. this is another piece he shares with sakusa: that they look and work towards completion, and going back on their word is an unthinkable impossibility. but he’s looking at his impossibility right now, as he rests his chin on an arm that is perched by the window of the bus. and the sun has her favorites, because the way she lights kiyoomi is unbearable. 

sakusa notices atsumu staring, because of course he does, and the light really does make him look so much more alive; there’s a blush riding high on his cheeks, and atsumu so badly wants to kiss it. “what are you looking at,” he grumbles. the light makes his eyes shine brighter.

“the moon,” atsumu says in dumbstruck wonder, because he is not thinking and thinking too much at the same time and his heart had somehow taken the opportunity to take control of his brain-to-mouth-filter and floored it. sakusa looks at him in confusion, and chances a glance at the window to see if the moon had already come up,  _ stupid omi-omi _ . “good night,” he says loudly, as if that would undo what he had already said. he sinks back down in his seat and closes his eyes, and pretends not to hear his pounding heart. “g’night, omi-kun!”

sakusa sighs, but he still replies, “good night, atsumu.” and isn’t that unfair.

sakusa kiyoomi is the moon and the sun and the impossibility of a future that atsumu had long accepted hadn’t been meant to be for someone like him. and, like many paragraphs ago, the way he confronts a heartrending revelation is to sleep through it. letting the exhaustion of the day catch up to him, he’s eventually lulled to sleep by the sound of the bus engine and his teammates in the background and sakusa’s breathing. 

(at some point, his head falls barely above sakusa’s shoulder and by grace, sakusa allows it. even in sleep, he is hyper aware of his spiker’s actions, and it barely escapes his notice when he feels sakusa lean back. lavender fills his senses. it is the best sleep he has had in a long time.)

-

**bastard brother**

samu are u there

may i

ask u to

quench my thirst

for knowledge    
_ [7:02 A.M.] _

ew

never say that again   
_ [7:03 A.M.] _

no <3

quench my fucking thirst   
_ [7:03 A.M.] _

EW   
_ [7:03 A.M.] _

wanna bet   
_ [7:03 A.M.] _

yes

on what

and i bet half of ur life savings   
_ [7:04 A.M.] _

BET U 50 YEARS FROM NOW IM GONNA BE HAPPIER ‼️   
_ [7:04 A.M.] _

..

im not even gonna ask what brought this on

ur so dumb 😭

how are u gonna schedule a bet 50 years from now on messenger

make it a year   
_ [7:05 A.M.] _

OKAY   
_ [7:05 A.M.] _

_ golden pisshead set a reminder one year from now: WHOS HAPPIER _

ok ur dumb part 2

how are u even gonna measure that   
_ [7:06 A.M.] _

well

i have volleyball

and u have

ur boyfriend 

and    
_ [7:07 A.M.] _

omygod why are u so dumb 😭 i hate this   
_ [7:12 A.M.] _

SHHH IM THINKGIN SHUT UP   
_ [7:12 A.M.] _

tsumu

this is why all ur scholarships are purely bec of volleyball and never bec of ur grades   
_ [7:13 A.M.] _

RUDE   
_ [7:13 A.M.] _

how the fuck are u gonna measure happiness 😭

listen to me

and this is me taking pity

this is me being generous at 7am

bec atsumu

happiness is a feeling, not a state of being   
_ [7:14 A.M.] _

huh   
_ [7:14 A.M.] _

i will eat ur kneecaps

reading comprehension: 0   
_ [7:15 A.M.] _

SHUT UP IM PROCESSING 💢

so are .. u happy rn

with the

shop n

suna   
_ [7:15 A.M.] _

yes

but rn

talking to u is making me lose 3 of my braincells per word u send so happiness is at a 2 rn

but rin made me breakfast even tho it’s ass o clock for him so that made me happy

do u Get It   
_ [7:15 A.M.] _

but what about taxes   
_ [7:16 A.M.] _

then im mad

i dont always have to be happy, yknow

thats kinda weird

and unrealistic

i have u for a brother   
_ [7:16 A.M.] _

huh   
_ [7:17 A.M.] _

are u happy rn   
_ [7:19 A.M.] _

uh?   
_ [7:20 A.M.] _

were u happy yesterday

or happiness incoming

training or wtv   
_ [7:22 A.M.] _

yea i cant wait to train!!!!

oh

OH

HUH???   
_ [7:23 A.M.] _

anyway bet’s still on get half of ur life savings ready u know my bank details 💋   
_ [7:23 A.M.] _

HOW WILL WE MEASURE IT

FOR THE BET   
_ [7:24 A.M.] _

u play volleyball with ur other volleyball idiots at the olympics and get a MSBY win against adlers

idk if ur lucky maybe u fall in love and have a stable relationship LMAO but i mean not a req since it’s u 😚

by the end of the year

THAT or

rin and i get married 🥰   
_ [7:25 A.M.] _

fair

bet’s still on?   
_ [7:25 A.M.] _

bet’s still on

[SENT A FILE: Osamu & Rintarou Wedding Invite.pdf]

and i win

💋💋💋   
_ [7:31 A.M.] _

IM GONNA MURDER U

THERES A DATE??? AND DETAILS????? AND I FIND OUT OVER FUCKING TEXT??????

omfg i hate y so much

whats ur bank numbwr   
_ [7:32 A.M.] _

lmao

rin and i made that five mins ago on canva

🤣🤣🤣   
_ [7:32 A.M.] _

_ CALLING bastard brother... _

-

atsumu, despite years of making a name for himself with inarizaki’s slogan behind him, holds a remarkable amount of nostalgia for a past with memories that should have been neatly tucked away instead of constantly being revisited. because for all that he works for tomorrow, he still cannot shake the afternoon of 2004 where he and his twin brother had stared up at a massive shelf full of sugary goods, nor can he bring himself to throw away the vanilla-scented hand cream and vanilla-scented everything around the house. he will still buy roses for special occasions and hope that it brings luck to someone else, just as he remembers the way the thorns had pricked his fingers and the smell of the stems on his skin. he looks at people and works through relationships like an rpg game, where one response equals to more points and more points equal to a bigger, brighter heart reserved for him. his chest holds a heart the size of a red giant, and it beats and pulses with the weight of all that he has stored in it, and it is a matter of time until it collapses.

atsumu is a creature created by memories, no matter how forward he looks. because memories, atsumu has learned, are inescapable when people he had constantly butted heads with in high school had, one by one, inexplicably come back into his life. memories are inescapable when they are linked with every single thing he keeps close because of his sentimentality. memories are inescapable when the sakusa kiyoomi he remembers from middle school to high school to training camps to intercollegiates is still the same, in the most important parts. because sakusa is still a star player, sakusa is still competitive, sakusa is still averse to touch, sakusa is still the color yellow, and sakusa still wears that goddamn mask everywhere he goes.

but all that is nostalgia. all that is a pile of documents all neatly filed and packed away in separate boxes in the office of his heart that carries things with any semblance of significance. atsumu, a creature of memories, is constantly starving for new ones. it is the reason he is a good player; it is the reason he is the second-best setter and the best server of the monster generation and the reason he has three serves in his arsenal. it is the reason it is devastating when he falls in love.

because sakusa kiyoomi, apart from the sakusa of high school that has stayed in the sakusa of now, smells like lavender, which atsumu hadn’t known due to the spiker being an avid fan of social distancing. sakusa kiyoomi likes the taste of salt and lemon and sugar, which atsumu finds out on that bus ride that had cemented the start of unspoken things between them. sakusa kiyoomi knows the streets of amsterdam, and for that one afternoon, had wanted atsumu to know it, too. sakusa kiyoomi lets atsumu fall asleep on his shoulder, is willing to hold his gloved hand, and takes it upon himself to make sure that his hands are always warm in the cold. sakusa kiyoomi has taken his memories and rewritten them, added to them, all without permission. and atsumu is starving—he eats what he loves, after all. atsumu wants to eat sakusa kiyoomi whole. atsumu wants to know how sakusa likes his eggs.

atsumu gets home to an empty apartment that smells of vanilla-scented things. and atsumu, who is made of memories and will be remade of new ones, opens his phone to buy lavender-scented essential oil for his diffuser.

-

“hey, ’samu. would’ya still’ve been happy if ’ya kept playing volleyball?”

“i can’t really say.”

“hm.”

“stop dwelling on that, ’ya loser.”

“yer happy now, right?”

“...yeah, tsumu. ’m happy.”

“m’kay. good.”

-

let’s talk about happiness, and the promises.

atsumu has never grown up unhappy. he has grown up with rage, maybe, or competitiveness, but all that is expected when you grow up with a brother like osamu. and it is due to osamu that he has never been unhappy, because it is hard to think on big questions like that when you’re constantly being challenged to races up the hill during training, or who could clean up the house the fastest, or who could cook the better egg. there were more pressing things to worry about, more things in sight that he wanted to chase, than to spare time thinking on whether or not the void in his chest feels content.

and atsumu is atsumu, so this means he is never content. fine by him; at least he will never grow tired of eating volleyball.

happiness isn’t  _ not _ on the agenda, but atsumu drifts through life thinking that it will be a given. it will be a given once he stands on top of japan’s high school volleyball world wearing inarizaki’s black without memories to shackle him down. it will be a given once he dons the red uniform he used to only see on tv when he still wore black. it will be a given once he has eaten all that volleyball has to offer, and maybe then he’ll finally be full.

given this, he has always thought happiness would feel like being full. and he has been full, many times, but he has always felt hungry again. happiness, for as long as atsumu has understood it, meant he would never be hungry anymore.

but he loves eating, and he loves volleyball, and if reaching the end of it all meant happiness, maybe he doesn’t want it.

which brings us to the promises.

the first promise is made out of spite. to be happier than osamu was to simply satiate the hunger to win, but this time with the highest of stakes. so maybe he was doomed to lose from the start, if even by then he’ll still be hungry for something, for vindication at having been left behind all those years back. maybe he was never happy at all, in that case.

but he  _ is _ happy, and if osamu is right in saying that happiness is fleeting, and happiness comes in moments, then there are plenty more moments of happiness in store. and atsumu being atsumu, will file all these away to look back on in fifty years when they’re by the fireplace; he is a creature of memories, after all. it was never a question of who would be happier, he realizes now. it simply is just a matter of  _ are you happy _ . it is a comforting thought, even if atsumu is a little mad it came from osamu.

(the bet for the year is still on, though.)

and to the second promise:

it is more for protection, atsumu reasons. the thing with volleyball is that there are safety measures in place to avoid too bad of a beating out there on court when you’re betting your safety for a ball to stay up in the air. there are so many types of harsh plays, and the sport takes a heavy toll on your body, what with all the jumps and the dive receives and all. so it makes sense that there are knee and elbow pads so you can spare yourself the bruises from falling to the hardwood floor.

and the thing with love, atsumu learns from high school, is that no matter how prepared you are for the fall, there will never be enough safety measures in place to spare your heart from the crash. volleyball has taught him that every time you reach the top, you will eventually have to come back down. there are no knee pads for your heart.

the solution is prevention, then. atsumu is in love with love and is hungry for love but he could never stand to bear another fall like that. there are enough vanilla-scented things around the house.

but lavender—

atsumu is starting to think he could stand to have lavender around. atsumu thinks he  _ wants _ lavender around: lavender helps him sleep, lavender calms him down, lavender doesn’t hurt. lavender reminds him of the moon, and, well.

he doesn’t know what to do with that.

-

  
  


_ ever so gently, please lay me down; _ _  
_ _ allow me all the things i’ve not deserved. _

_ c.w. _

there is a dream sequence that atsumu lets roll in his head when the exhaustion from hours of strenuous volleyball practice isn’t enough to quiet his chatterbox of a brain. it’s nothing deep; there is nothing to psychoanalyze like the way he has with his salt-lemon candy or his brief childhood attachment to a farm rpg game. 

it’s rather simple, the dream sequence. it’s a little too honest in its simplicity, in that there is literally nothing more that he could ask for other than what he lets himself come up with in his head.

it starts off like this:

the sun pouring through the wide, wide windows he has in an apartment that is not his. the light is blinding, making visible the suspended dust of a well-loved lived-in home. the padding of his bare feet on a wooden floor, feeling the warmth from the light absorbed by its fibers. a large, large worn shirt that is not his hanging on his frame. there is a couch in the middle of the room, and a small wooden coffee table with a cooling cup of tea on it. there is someone with him, waiting for him. they reach out a hand, and atsumu reaches back. 

he never reaches the end, where he sees who it is. but it is simple, and it is comforting, and if atsumu allows himself a bit of honesty every once in a while, he would say it’s what he wants to come home to on the weekends, or on the off days, or every day.

it starts off like this:

the sun pouring through the wide, wide windows he has in an apartment that is not his. the light is blinding, making visible the suspended dust of a well-loved lived-in home. the padding of his bare feet on a wooden floor, feeling the warmth from the light absorbed by its fibers. a large, worn yellow-green shirt that is not his hanging on his frame. there is a black couch in the middle of the room, and a small wooden coffee table with a cooling cup of tea and another mug of coffee on it. there is someone with him, waiting for him. they reach out a hand, and atsumu reaches back. 

atsumu looks up, and this is the part where he usually falls asleep. this is the part where he never sees who it is, but it is simple and it is comforting and it is never enough but it has to be enough. but it keeps going, and atsumu looks up, and sees wavy hair and two beauty marks above a brow and obsidian eyes.

atsumu smells lavender.

he doesn’t sleep for a little while after that.

-

atsumu has never cared much about the seasons, other than measuring it by volleyball playability. back then, he would have said he hated winter because it meant he couldn’t play volleyball—not in the backyard, nor at the gym, and heaven help him if he even tried it inside with all his mother’s prized vases. back then, he would have said he hated autumn, too, but less; because at least he could still play volleyball, but if it got too cold then he got sick and then he wouldn’t be able to play.

but now he’s twenty-four, and he has access to a heated gym, so practice never stops. and the seasons stop being measures of what time he has left in this certain period to play volleyball, and more of a backdrop. he really couldn’t give two shits about the leaves changing color.

it’s autumn, and atsumu usually couldn’t care less, but when he and sakusa walk home a little later due to additional spike-receive training, sakusa looks like he’s absorbing all that’s left of the sun’s heat and glows a little brighter with the orange leaves and the orange sun. the wind is a little stronger this time of day this time of year, and it makes sakusa’s hair fly. atsumu’s favorite season is officially autumn.

“miya,” sakusa says, eyes bright and pointing at the izakaya MSBY frequents some nights. it is the same izakaya where sakusa first got drunk with them, and where all of them first got drunk with the team. “eat, for a bit?”

atsumu is twenty-four, and he is starving. he smiles at kiyoomi. “sounds good, omi-omi. my treat?”

sakusa walks to the izakaya’s entrance without preamble, but atsumu could spot the glint in his eyes. “don’t use this to swindle cash out of me, miya. you offered.”

“yes, yes, omi-kun!” he chirps, dashing right in front of sakusa to open the curtain for the two of them, yelling out a greeting to the obaa-san who owns the izakaya. they visit frequently enough that she immediately points to two available stools by the bar.

ordering is a quiet affair: the obaa-san knows them well enough to have memorized their orders. the izakaya is full, so she spares them the teasing and settles for ruffling their hair and a habitual,  _ eat a lot, you two _ .

and then it’s just them.

atsumu stretches his arms far back just to feel the joints in his shoulders pop, then lets his arms fall back to the counter. and, as has become routine whenever he’s with sakusa, leans on his hand and takes the time to look.

kiyoomi never stops being a sight to see, even in exhaustion. there’s a satisfied look in his eye, though, which lets atsumu know he had felt the same contentment during this day’s practice session. sakusa is typing away at his phone, so atsumu looks in relative peace. 

they wait quietly, and with anyone else, atsumu would be trying to chatter away the silence, too wired to let it pass by and have his companion be bored by his company. it’s never been like that with sakusa, who from the start had actually preferred the silence over atsumu yapping on. it makes him feel a little calmer in the stillness, less inclined to disrupt it. 

(it is the only time atsumu is ever allowed to be quiet, if he’s being honest. and it’s not like sakusa shuts him up when he’s in the mood to chatter, either. sakusa is the exception to a lot of things, atsumu thinks, and this is another one of them: there is a certain freedom to being sakusa kiyoomi’s chosen company. it is freedom he has only found in one other place, in stadium lights and polished floors and the smell of salonpas; another piece they share. 

briefly, he thinks about the time sakusa had taken the initiative to hold his hand through amsterdam, and how they had stayed quiet for most of the time, in a secluded spot where it was only the two of them and the sun and kiyoomi’s childhood memories of a town on the other side of the world, and hopes that sakusa thinks of him as an exception to a few things, too.)

sakusa puts down his phone, and his eyes are slightly creased as if he was smiling a little underneath the mask. atsumu feels his heart squeeze. there’s a leaf in his hair, atsumu notices, and his hand subconsciously reaches towards it. 

sakusa turns to look at him, eyes questioning: “atsumu?”

his hands stutter in the air, and so does his lungs, and so does his heart.

“kiyoomi,” he tries, feels his tongue wrap around the syllables and have it fall out of his mouth in moondust. he eats what he loves, after all; it is no secret it should come spilling out.  _ ah, _ he thinks.  _ i’m overflowing. _

kiyoomi’s eyes widen, and red blooms on his cheeks. he is so unfairly pretty. “what is it?” he asks, voice soft.

atsumu leans in and his hand goes to reach out and pick the leaf in sakusa’s hair—and it should have been over at that point. he should have shown it as explanation, as to why he had to invade sakusa’s personal space even as he tries his best not to, and he should have let it go. he should have let it go, but atsumu has never been good at letting things go, so this is not how it ends.

-

pause.

let’s go back a few days ago. it was his birthday, and there was nothing special to it besides the customary greetings and the cake and the special treatment everyone allowed him for that day. osamu called, and sent a box of packed onigiri. it was a great day, if not for the way he still felt like he was starving for something.

he’s not dumb, contrary to osamu’s comments: atsumu had already realized the reason why his chest seems intent on collapsing in itself whenever he was around omi-omi. it’s hard not to; atsumu is intimately familiar with love and how it moves and feels in the bones of his ribcage—he’d only severely underestimated the weight of his big dumb heart.

and there was something missing, and atsumu knows what he’s missing, but he refuses to acknowledge it in the hopes that it would become less real. when meian pulls out a cake from god knows where and the team sings him happy birthday in discordant notes, he pulls out a big smile and blows on the candles.

what did you wish for, they ask. i won’t say, atsumu says back. i won’t say because it won’t come true. isn’t that how wishes work?

they laugh, say it’s about volleyball anyway, what a champ—and pat his back. he’s still holding the cake.  _ HAPPY BIRTHDAY ATSUMU! _ and a drawing of a fox is iced on top.

i won’t say what i wished for, atsumu thinks. i won’t say because saying would make it real. and that’s not how wishes work, but isn’t that how truth works?

someone comes to stand in front of him. atsumu is still holding the cake and staring into it and hoping that it’s chocolate, so he doesn’t really care even when the shadow of someone six foot something tall makes it so that it’s harder to see the fox on the cake. distantly, he hears balls bouncing and shoes squeaking against the varnished floor. the cake is a little heavy, but it gives him something to do with his hands.

“miya,” something missing says. atsumu looks up from the fox and its smile that looks far too smug for something drawn out of butter and sugar and milk. “happy birthday.”

he says it with the enthusiasm of a weather report: today, it’s going to be hot; with a temperature of 36 degrees celsius. tomorrow will be rain. alternatively: miya, happy birthday. 

atsumu feels his chest blow up with something intimately familiar in how it moves and feels. he grins back at sakusa’s impassive face. “thanks, omi-kun! ’ya really made my day there.”

it’s too honest on its own, so he makes sure the grin he gives and the tone he uses evoke more  _ i want to punch you in the face _ than anything more genuine that he’s allowing to slip out. sakusa looks like he wants to punch atsumu in the face, so that worked well, but then his expression smooths out and he nods.

“see you later. stop taking so goddamn long in the shower,” sakusa says, and turns back to where inunaki is calling him for spike-receive practice. atsumu looks on, and his chest quietens down for the first time that day. 

he feels full. and he is still holding the goddamn cake.

“’tsumu-san! are you gonna go to the pantry to keep that?” hinata bounces into his periphery, an orange blob of muscle and energy. “i can go with you there!”

he gives shouyou a gratified smile. “yeah, shou-kun. that’d be great.”

hinata smiles back up at him, all sunbeam and wonder, and atsumu remembers the times back then when he’d be on the receiving end of such brilliance and  _ wanted _ . and he remembers how the universe had shooed him away, and pushed kageyama tobio back in the scene, and how it had been over then.

he has always wanted the sun, often fell apart when faced directly with it. but now he stares it back in the face and feels nothing.

hinata is chatting away by his side as they leave the gym, and as atsumu answers back a reply, someone jumps for a serve. he turns to look and sees sakusa, and the lights of the gym behind him makes it look like he is something holy.

he feels his heart seize. if the universe had kept him at bay from the sun, there is no chance he’d be worthy at a shot with a god.

atsumu turns back to where hinata is still enthusiastically carrying on the conversation. he holds the cake in his hands and drags his feet out the door, carrying more than the weight of flour and frosting.

-

atsumu leans in, and his hand goes to pick the leaf out, and it should have been over there. but he notices a stray piece of hair falling into kiyoomi’s eyes, and he goes to tuck it behind his ear, his hand grazing the side of kiyoomi’s face. it is an innocuous moment; one not deserving of much significance. but at this distance where all that he sees is kiyoomi and his eyes and that fucking mask, it is clearly more than that.

atsumu would be a joke of a setter if he had ever missed the point where he and sakusa’s dynamic had shifted. this is the moment it shifts from imperceptible to undeniable.

(sakusa kiyoomi is the exception to many things. and whether or not that is the same for him with miya atsumu, well—

atsumu thinks he got his answer.)

“sorry,” atsumu says, sitting back on his stool. there is a line between them, and he goes from crossing it to staying right behind it, right where he belongs. he eats what he loves, and in pursuit of holding it back he spills a little more. “there was a leaf in yer hair, omi-omi. ’ya know i wouldn’t touch ’ya if ’ya di’n’t want to, so i’m sorry if that made ’ya feel uncomfo—”

“atsumu,” kiyoomi repeats, and this time it isn’t a fluke, right, that’s twice in one day— “shut up.”

“right, right, gotcha, haha, sorr—”

kiyoomi reaches out. there is a line between them, and he willingly crosses it to hold atsumu’s gloveless hands that are starting to flail and maybe sweat a little. he does not let go. “atsumu, you’re really dumb.”

“yeah, i hear that a lot—”

kiyoomi laughs, bright and surprising and divine. atsumu shuts the fuck up. kiyoomi’s eyes are still creased as if he were smiling, and if atsumu had thought it radiant in the afternoon golden light it is impossibly brighter now. kiyoomi lowers his mask to reveal one of those rare, collector-edition sakusa kiyoomi smiles and atsumu gets an overwhelming urge to worship. “atsumu,” he says, voice light with amusement. atsumu feels like he could die. “i wasn’t uncomfortable.”

“y-’ya weren’t?”

“no, you blockhead.” kiyoomi laughs again, and atsumu feels his heart break and be pieced back together all in that one instant. he vaguely registers kiyoomi’s hand still on his. “i like you, atsumu. a lot.”

atsumu stares back at kiyoomi’s eyes still looking straight at him, sees the amusement still dancing in his eyes, and if atsumu lets himself believe he might say that there’s an undercurrent of fondness, too. feels the warmth of kiyoomi’s hand in his, and thinks with wondrous awe that he gets to feel it, skin-to-skin. this is what it’s like holding hands with a god.

he hopes and prays to the universe,  _ let him have this _ . 

just as he’s about to reply, kiyoomi pulls away and separates their hands as their ramen arrives. before he’s able to mourn the loss of warmth and touch and lavender and kiyoomi, he looks back at atsumu. with the curve of his mouth in a gentle smile and his eyes carrying the secrets of the universe, atsumu hears it.

you can have this.

-

let’s go back one more time, to six years ago, to the weeks that led up to the day in the inarizaki locker rooms, with the roses and vanilla.

there are very few things that miya atsumu thinks through, being someone who prefers to let impulse take over. his heart is loud and big and more often than not it wants to hold the reins, so he lets it; it has never been wrong, after all. his heart is what led him to volleyball.

but for this—

for this, atsumu thinks. 

he’s fairly sure he is in love with kita. he knows the time his captain gets to school, the time he leaves, the outside of his house, the inside of his bento box. atsumu’s heart holds these documents with care, and the box he left out is starting to fill up. the last thing he wants to do is to fuck this up.

he thinks it through—lets the confession scene run through his head before he sleeps, memorizes the number of the flower shop and the price of the bouquet he’ll buy so he knows how much to set aside from his allowance. he wakes up and plays volleyball, and counts down the days until their third years leave high school for good. he gets to be captain, gets to wear the 1 on his back, and when kita congratulates him, he feels his heart swell with pride and pleasant surprise.

he rides this high until the third years become inactive to study for exams, and lets the days pass with volleyball, and more volleyball, and more volleyball. atsumu only gets hungrier, and he lets the blood in his veins revel at the exhaustion and satisfaction that only the sport could give him. he has known that volleyball is a love that will stay, has known that even though osamu has plans to leave, volleyball will never be able to do the same to him.

kita drops by to check on them, still the responsible captain they all look up to. kita is leaving, in a few weeks. atsumu grins and waves and hopes that kita is like volleyball.

graduation comes, and atsumu has just gotten the bouquet from the flower shop, and he runs to the locker room to hide it for a bit while his seniors and fellow juniors are in the ceremony. there’s no time, so he leaves it on a bench and runs back to where osamu is waiting.

kita steps on stage, and atsumu feels his heart almost break out of his chest.

and later, when the leaves are swept up and the chairs are stacked back and the banners are taken down, atsumu asks kita to meet him in the locker room.

miya atsumu eats what he loves, and he feels like he’s about to puke.

“kita-san,” he says, just to feel the syllables on his tongue. just to let some of it spill out. at this distance, he smells the vanilla on kita and it hurts his lungs the tiniest bit. kita looks at him, and he’s seen the roses, he knows where this is going— “i like you.”

kita smiles, like he always does, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “atsumu,” he says back, and atsumu holds a little tighter onto the roses. the thorns are pressing in. “thank you, but i’m sorry.” i don’t like you that way.

well. no one does.

atsumu smiles back, and the thorns are starting to hurt, so he hands the roses over. kita takes it carefully, his hands gently holding the stems that atsumu had almost broken. “s’no big deal, kita-san. i just wanted to let ’ya know. closure, an’ all that.”

kita taps his hand softly. “you’ll find someone, y’know. ’ya deserve that. to be loved.”

atsumu nods at that and beams. the force of his smile makes the tears that had gathered in his eyes leak out. “yeah, i hope i will.”

-

fast-forward to now, in the izakaya with the obaa-san who treats them like they’re her own, with the ramen that they always order, with the man who smells like lavender and likes his salt-lemon candy and who guards heaven’s gates and is heaven itself.

kiyoomi inches his seat a little closer, and atsumu crosses the rest of the distance. there is a line, and he is permitted to move freely past it.

atsumu lets himself look openly at his impossibility-turned-possibility, and remembers the day in the inarizaki locker rooms with the roses and the vanilla where he’d let his heart take the backseat and he was told to set it free.

he deserves that, kita had said. to be loved.

kiyoomi meets his open, fond gaze and levels it with his own, accompanied by a raise of a single brow because sakusa kiyoomi is the love of his life but he’s still a big bitch, and atsumu feels his chest crack open.

i have, kita-san. i’ve found him.

-

_ ringing. ringing. dial tone: you have reached miya osamu. would you like to leave a message? _

“hey, ’samu, it’s ’tsumu. i get it, now. i got that soft-boiled egg ’ya were talkin’ about. call me back.”

_ incoming call: bastard brother _

_ call duration: 3 hours, 48 minutes, and 32 seconds. _

-

miya atsumu holds in his chest a heart that is constantly in overdrive: it loves and it loves and it loves. he loves in a way that swallows him whole. he loves easily, but rarely; it is the reason he only ever has volleyball.

atsumu has only ever known love three times in his life: first, with his rice fucker of a brother; second, with a sport that has him keep a ball in the air, and; third, with his high-school captain and his vanilla-scented things. but he  _ knows _ love—knows it intimately, in the way it moves and the way it feels in his chest. love is a constant feeling of hunger. satiating it equals to contentment. to happiness.

and sakusa kiyoomi has rewritten this, added to this, all without permission.

because love is hunger—love is wanting to keep racing against this dipshit of a brother to see who gets to the top of the hill faster. love is diving underneath the ball to save it, to set it, to save it, to set it. love is buying roses, and cooking eggs, and keeping the memories with them safely tucked in the drawers of your heart.

but love also tastes of salt and lemon and sugar, of keeping it on your tongue and treasuring the way it stays and lingers on your taste buds. love smells like lavender, and it is soft and sweet and comforting and it helps you sleep. love is the moon, in how it shifts the tides gently under its light—so unlike the love you knew when you were a kid and roughhousing was your primary love language. love is always warm, and oh so open, even though for the longest time you had thought it untouchable. 

love is  _ scary _ —love is a soft-boiled egg, because love makes you so prone to fucking up, is so easy to fuck up—but it doesn’t have to be. love holds your sanitized hands through the rough spots, is there for the smooth-sailing ones. love is a rivalry over service aces, love is the taste of victory wearing matching uniforms of black with gold and national team red, love is a solar eclipse against the glare of metropolitan lights. love waits, and love is quiet, and love is the biggest bitch you’ve ever met.

love has never been atsumu’s forte—it has never been something he thought he was allowed, because the universe is the universe, and he is still mildly convinced that it is out to get him. he is difficult to love, and will continue to be, but love makes him want to try, nevertheless.

(after all, love has tried for him.)

and because miya atsumu loves the way he does, in a way that swallows him whole, let his love be solidified into matter. there is nothing else that binds love more than promises. so he makes one, the only one ever worth seeing through to completion:

sakusa kiyoomi, i am going to love you for a long time.

  
  


_ i’ll give you my heart to make a place for it to happen, _ _  
_ _ evidence of a love that transcends hunger. _

_ r.s. _

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> i'd written this during the holidays while listening to evermore and i had gold rush on repeat too many times and when i was about to sleep i Couldn't and just typed out the first hundred words on my notes app, and did that for two weeks straight even after christmas and during hell weeks as a form of comfort because nothing comforts me more than atsumu yearning
> 
> 1.) the salt-lemon candy is a Legit thing, if that sounds bonkers to u. the brand is cocon salt & lemon candy and my sister and i had bought a bag when we were in a hundred yen store bec we were curious and she ended up addicted to it while i was Occasionally in the mood for it. i still kept a stash of it in my bag just because and when kids asked me for candy in class bec we all needed sugar to stay awake they would go ??? the fuck and just ask someone else or Try It Once then make a face. it was very funny. atsumu's the type of bitch to base his hair color on a candy.  
> 2.) harvest moon friends of mineral town is the og farm rpg and i grew up on it. courted every possible person on both versions, tried to 100% it (am still trying). their hearts grow to be very big and very pretty and it's so fun talking to them just to see it beat and go, wow, they love (farmer) me. atsumu would do that too
> 
> i apologize for any inaccuracies! i lived on the haikyuu wikia page while writing this but even then it was still very much just Me, Venting through atsumu and hoping it works. i hope it worked.
> 
> if you're still reading this, thank you for making it to the end! sakuatsu is the first ship i've ever properly completed writing for, and i hope that i gave this lovely lovely galaxy brainrot of a ship justice. miya atsumu this is all for you, you beautiful mess of a man.
> 
> kudos and comments are very much appreciated!


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